A petition demanding Rick Ross be removed from an ad campaign has been signed by more than 51,000 people.

The lyrics to his song 'U.O.E.N.O' had already been criticised by women's groups and anti-sexism campaigners, with a second wave of outrage now demanding Reebok end their endorsement deal with the star. The lyrics in question find Ross hinting at drugging a woman in order to have sex with her - Molly being slang for the drug MDMA. "Put molly all in her champagne, She ain’t even know it, I took her home and I enjoyed that, She ain’t even know it,” he raps.

The track features on Rocko's 'Gift Of Gab 2' mixtape which was released in February, and features guest verses from Ross and fellow rapper Future. Nita Chaudhury, co-founder of anti-sexism collective UltraViolet, said: "Reebok devotes a lot of time, energy and money to marketing to women, and now they're paying a man who is literally bragging about raping women. That tells women that Reebok isn't interested in our business. It tells us that Reebok is OK promoting rape culture and when one out of five women are the victim of an attempted or completed rape, that has real life consequences."

Ross, however, has defended the lyrics, saying they've been misinterpreted: "I want to make sure this is clear that woman is the most precious gift known to man," he said. "It was a misunderstanding with a lyric, a misinterpretation where the term rape wasn't used."

"I just wanted to reach out to all the queens that's on my timeline, all the sexy ladies, the beautiful ladies that had been reaching out to me with the misunderstanding. We don’t condone rape and I’m not with that," he added in an interview with New Orleans radio station Q93.3 FM.